Ashes to Ashes
by Lamia
Summary: Whatever happened to the villanous trio?


_Decidated to the one and only Alex. Because he deserves so. I Hope he gets the reference [you better]_

After its abrupt arrival, the angel had decided it was an unusual place. Its surroundings were composed of nothing but an oily sky, which shifted of murky browns and burned greens. Though sunless, the sky was luminous enough to reveal a clear floor, adorned with stretching deserts of crystalline poppies. The clear floor was the only thing that prevented the angel from floating into the abyss of space. 

After its arrival, the angel had continuously explored the desolate place in order to find if its eyes had missed any insignificant detail that would lead to liberty. But after much scrutinizing it realized it had not. The angel was captive once more in the solitude of an unfamiliar land. Dejected, it gave up its search and sat among the poppies while staring obliviously at the sky, almost as if it was sleeping. 

But it could not have been said that the angel was sleeping, for it had not done such a thing ever since its creation. It had no need to, sleep was created for humans, for their bodies were weak and needed rest. Humanity was not built like angels were: far superior, stronger and more powerful than humans. More alike to the creator than they would ever aspire to be. 

It was after its downward spiral when the angel acquired necessities fashioned for humans. It was logical; its body was not in the perfection of the Silver City anymore. Of all the human characteristics the angel attained, sleeping was the one that he found the most dreadful. For sleeping brought dreams, and the angel's dreams were always horrid. Night after night it dreamt of long entwined nightmares, always echoing of torture and pain. Each more terrible than the last, as though the creator felt that exile from grace was not a punishment severe enough. 

But no longer among humanity, and the angel was stripped from human notions. 

Trapped, it only did what it could do. Sulk and stare, until it accidentally discovered the flowers' properties, which led to the discovery of the sights that could be seen from underneath the poppies, through the crystal floor. The angel liked neither, and it often pledged it would not repeat either one. But it found it difficult to avoid something it was surrounded by. 

Without a sun, or any characteristic that would help divide moments effectively, time for the angel became an intangible glob. With nothing to do or nowhere to go, the angel fought temptation by staring at the sky. Then invisible creatures started invading his mind. After they conquered it, the angel had someone to engage in derogatory conversations with. Even if they were monologues. 

** 

"I wonder if they remember me," it said out loud one day, his voice was gentle like the whisper of a flickering flame. 

The angel sneered, "And what is there to remember about you," it replied itself slightly harsher. 

It paused, gentleness crawled back to the sides of his mouth, "Oh many things. Many many things." it chuckled and involuntarily plucked a poppy. "Why if my name was brought up in a conversation, any conversation, they would not stop talking about me. Ever. They could talk for eons and eons." Its grey eyes rolled to the sky, filled with childish awe and melancholy. "I did ever so many things." it paused before laughing a mocking laugh. 

"No it's true," it whispered. "To insinuate an angel is not remembered is like saying the cold moon does not deserve a place in the sky with the lord sun for it does not burn with the same intensity. But the moon offers the same the sun does, in its own way. The same with angels." 

"We were all created for a purpose. In our own way. I did my share of memorable deeds. Before the.." Its grey eyes filled with something darkened in ways they had not before, as if black had started to filter its way into them, "accident happened." 

It paused and closed its eyes. "I did my share," it told itself and opened them. Its clear gaze fixed on the poppy. The angel nervously twirled the flower among its fingers. 

"All they have to do is remember," it concluded, nonchalantly. 

"Very true," it harshly replied. "But which do you refer to when you say remembered? The Underworld, or the Silver City?" 

Its face grew bitter and said nothing. 

"Maybe in both," the harsh tone continued, "Your reputation is far worse than Lucifer's " 

The angel said nothing. Before it realized what it had done, the angel brought the poppy to its nose and whiffed its scent deeply, as if it as if fragrance was trivial for its survival. It coughed and shuddered, as if he suddenly was standing in the artic cold. 

"I promised myself I wouldn't do this," it murmured but did not pay attention to its words. It took the brittle flower and crushed it in its palm. It licked the powered residue it left behind. 

The angel started laughing, a richly melodious laugh, that turned into a wheezing chuckle of an old man and the twinkling titter of a child. Its laugh resonated all the way to the sky, and when it crashed against it, it boomed into various elecletic sounds similar to the chords of tuneless guitar. The laugh continued to change and ring, like an amorphous shadow. 

The angel collapsed from laughter, its sides stabbed with pain. It rolled among the poppies until its eyes looked down the clear floor. It fell silent as it saw a fleeting glimpse of what he dreaded setting his eyes upon. 

Below the poppies stood solemn darkness; but farther away, stood the outline of a city. Glimmering, softer than gold and more lush than the glimmer of any delicate gem. 

It started pounding its fists against the ground. Concrete hardness ripped against its hands. It pounded with the desperation of a dying man and the intensity of a maddened ax. Until its hands were beyond broken. It pounded, hoping someone would listen to its pounding. 

"I'm up here," the angel breathed. "Can't any of you hear me?" 

It knew they could not. They would never. It lay on its stomach for a while before it decided to turn around and continued gawking at the sky once again. Trying to keep its mind elsewhere, trying to ignore the inharmonic symphony that surrounded him. It told itself it would not do it again, just like it had told itself in prior occasions. 

"I wonder if they remember me," it asked himself in a lowly whisper. 

*** 

In the village it was almost night. Wisps of violet hard already started to unravel against the pink tongue of the sky. In what would be considered the center of a poor English village stood a pit in which corpses were pilled. 

Each day brought more and more corpses to the pit of men, women, and sometimes children, that had fallen victim of a mysterious ill that ravished all life forms, a merciless plague. 

On the edge of the pit stood two people, a tall and wolfish man that loomed over a much shorter, fox-like man. The tall creature held in one hand the corpse of a puppy, long dead and decayed. With the other one, he petted it. Both watched the pale decomposing corpses with brown and faded blue eyes, full of famine. 

"We're not home are we?" asked the tall man before he took a bite off the dead puppy. 

"If by home," replied his counterpart, "you mean a place of rest, or familiar surroundings, my dear Mr. Vandemar you are right, we are not." He paused for a bit and continued to eye the corpses intensely. "If by home," he continued, "you referred to one's homeland, we, technically, are home. Or if by home, you meant a place of rest for the homeless and sick, "he added with a chuckle, "then we are home." 

The tall man continued to devour the puppy. "They don't look very sick to me," he stated in between bites. "They look dead." 

The fox man nodded. " A clever deduction," he agreed and said nothing more. The two of them remained in silence until the moon began to rise. "Now come along Mr.Vandemar," the short man said as he began to walk, "we have a long road to travel." 

"Where are we going Mr. Croup?" asked the wolf man as he started to walk beside his partner. 

"Nowhere in particular at the moment, "he replied, "Anywhere else for our services are not required here." 

His partner was confused and asked his partner if he knew when or where they would be needed. 

The fox man said, "We will know Mr. Vandemar, you don't have to worry about that. There are endless possibilities. It does not matter, really." 

He asked, "Are you familiar with the terms _kronos_ and _kairos_?" From the look in his partner's face, Mr. Croup knew he was not, which made him secretly proud of his knowledge of words. 

"Both are Greek," he started. "And both refer to time. The first however, refers to a measurable unit while the latter is the sense of timing. Which is what we are doing. _Kairos_. Fitting an action to an opportunity, for there are no clocks around us that could impair us. Nothing can stop us." 

Mr. Vandemar agreed that there were no clocks around them, but he was not sure about anything else Mr. Croup had said. Slightly confused, Mr. Vandemar pondered what Mr. Croup had said as they walked away from the village, until they became one with the shadows of night. 


End file.
